Bilingualism builds on basics

Born and raised in Canada, I took a special interest in this article from the Montreal Gazette.  Canada is an officially bilingual country and has pioneered some excellent languge education methodologies, such as immersion.  The nation has adopted various policies and approaches to maintain a strong group of bilingual English and French speakers.

The article cites Robyn Matthew, author of Language Logic: Practical and Effective Techniques to Learn Any Language, who believes that an understanding of basic principles of grammar and syntax are the foundation for learning a language.  The suggestion is that, with the decreased emphasis on these topics in today's curricula, our students may find it more difficult to learn second (and third, etc.) languages.

This idea makes me think of the backlash among some parents against rote learning, such as multiplication tables, and more pedantic, seemingly esoteric, subjects, such as grammar.  While I do think it is important for education methods to be constantly re-evaluated and innovated, it seems there may be subtle, unseen, merits to a lot of these old techniques.  I guess you really can't get something for nothing!